Well anyone with a brain already knew this but lets roll the tape:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1491863966775136266
- berryberry
- 02-11-2022, 12:09 PM
- berryberry
- 02-11-2022, 12:20 PM
More from the Washington Post
Documents reveal U.S. military’s frustration with White House, diplomats over Afghanistan evacuation
Senior White House and State Department officials failed to grasp the Taliban’s steady advance on Afghanistan’s capital and resisted efforts by U.S. military leaders to prepare the evacuation of embassy personnel and Afghan allies weeks before Kabul’s fall, placing American troops ordered to carry out the withdrawal in greater danger, according to sworn testimony from multiple commanders involved in the operation.
An Army investigative report, numbering 2,000 pages and released to The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request, details the life-or-death decisions made daily by U.S. soldiers and Marines sent to secure Hamid Karzai International Airport as thousands converged on the airfield in a frantic bid to escape.
Beyond the bleak, blunt assessments of top military commanders, the documents contain previously unreported disclosures about the violence American personnel experienced, including one exchange of gunfire that left two Taliban fighters dead after they allegedly menaced a group of U.S. Marines and Afghan civilians. In a separate incident a few days later, U.S. troops killed a member of an elite Afghan strike unit that had joined the operation and wounded six others after they fired on the Americans.
The investigation was launched in response to an Aug. 26 suicide bombing just outside the airport that killed an estimated 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members. But it is much broader, providing perhaps the fullest official account yet of the evacuation operation, which spanned 17 nightmarish days and has become one of the Biden administration’s defining moments — drawing scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats for the haphazard nature in which the United States ended its longest war.
Military personnel would have been “much better prepared to conduct a more orderly” evacuation, Navy Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, the top U.S. commander on the ground during the operation, told Army investigators, “if policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground.” He did not identify any administration officials by name, but said inattention to the Taliban’s determination to complete a swift and total military takeover undermined commanders’ ability to ready their forces.
Vasely could not be reached for comment.
The report includes witness statements from dozens of people interviewed after an Islamic State-Khorasan operative detonated a suicide vest at the airport’s Abbey Gate. Senior defense officials announced Friday that the investigation had determined that a single bomb packed with ball bearings caused “disturbing lethality” in the tightly packed outdoor corridor leading to the airfield.
The operation evacuated 124,000 people before concluding about midnight Aug. 31. It required U.S. commanders to strike an unusual security pact with the Taliban and rapidly deploy nearly 6,000 troops to assist a skeleton force of about 600 left behind under Vasely’s command to protect U.S. Embassy personnel. U.S. officials have lauded the effort, but critics have said that although U.S. troops performed heroically, the evacuation was flawed and incomplete, leaving behind hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans who supported the war effort and were promised a way out.
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The Marine general told investigators that trying to engage the embassy in discussions about an evacuation was “like pulling teeth” until early August. “After that,” he said, “it became more collaborative.”
A spokesman for Sullivan referred questions to McKenzie.
During an Aug. 6 meeting, a National Security Council official, who is not identified in the report, appeared to lack a sense of urgency and told others involved that if the United States had to execute an evacuation, it would signal “we have failed,” Sullivan recalled. “In my opinion, the NSC was not seriously planning for an evacuation,” he said.
The White House declined to comment.
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At the embassy, U.S. troops went room to room on Aug. 15, pressing people to meet deadlines and get ready to go, an Army officer from the 10th Mountain Division told investigators. Some State Department personnel were “intoxicated and cowering in rooms,” and others were “operating like it was day-to-day operations with absolutely no sense of urgency or recognition of the situation,” the officer said.
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Sullivan, the Marine general, told investigators that there were changing expectations about how many people associated with Afghan paramilitary units aiding the evacuation needed to be taken out of the country. He initially thought it was 6,000 people — including strike unit members and their families — but later learned the correct number was about 38,800, and advised that it would be wise for the military to request commercial airline help through the Civil Reserve Air Fleet to increase overall flights.
Additionally, U.S. troops were overwhelmed with thousands of requests from the White House and Congress, and as far as the Vatican, to locate and rescue specific people in the crowd, including some who would not otherwise have been eligible for the evacuation.
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Officials said on Friday that, in addition to the 13 service members who died, another 45 were wounded in the blast, with some suffering brain injuries that surfaced later.
On Aug. 29, an errant U.S. drone strike killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children. Top Pentagon officials initially justified the attack, saying they believed it had targeted another would-be suicide bomber. The victims included an aid worker and several members of his family.
Full story at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...investigation/
Documents reveal U.S. military’s frustration with White House, diplomats over Afghanistan evacuation
Senior White House and State Department officials failed to grasp the Taliban’s steady advance on Afghanistan’s capital and resisted efforts by U.S. military leaders to prepare the evacuation of embassy personnel and Afghan allies weeks before Kabul’s fall, placing American troops ordered to carry out the withdrawal in greater danger, according to sworn testimony from multiple commanders involved in the operation.
An Army investigative report, numbering 2,000 pages and released to The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request, details the life-or-death decisions made daily by U.S. soldiers and Marines sent to secure Hamid Karzai International Airport as thousands converged on the airfield in a frantic bid to escape.
Beyond the bleak, blunt assessments of top military commanders, the documents contain previously unreported disclosures about the violence American personnel experienced, including one exchange of gunfire that left two Taliban fighters dead after they allegedly menaced a group of U.S. Marines and Afghan civilians. In a separate incident a few days later, U.S. troops killed a member of an elite Afghan strike unit that had joined the operation and wounded six others after they fired on the Americans.
The investigation was launched in response to an Aug. 26 suicide bombing just outside the airport that killed an estimated 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members. But it is much broader, providing perhaps the fullest official account yet of the evacuation operation, which spanned 17 nightmarish days and has become one of the Biden administration’s defining moments — drawing scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats for the haphazard nature in which the United States ended its longest war.
Military personnel would have been “much better prepared to conduct a more orderly” evacuation, Navy Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, the top U.S. commander on the ground during the operation, told Army investigators, “if policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground.” He did not identify any administration officials by name, but said inattention to the Taliban’s determination to complete a swift and total military takeover undermined commanders’ ability to ready their forces.
Vasely could not be reached for comment.
The report includes witness statements from dozens of people interviewed after an Islamic State-Khorasan operative detonated a suicide vest at the airport’s Abbey Gate. Senior defense officials announced Friday that the investigation had determined that a single bomb packed with ball bearings caused “disturbing lethality” in the tightly packed outdoor corridor leading to the airfield.
The operation evacuated 124,000 people before concluding about midnight Aug. 31. It required U.S. commanders to strike an unusual security pact with the Taliban and rapidly deploy nearly 6,000 troops to assist a skeleton force of about 600 left behind under Vasely’s command to protect U.S. Embassy personnel. U.S. officials have lauded the effort, but critics have said that although U.S. troops performed heroically, the evacuation was flawed and incomplete, leaving behind hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans who supported the war effort and were promised a way out.
.
.
.
The Marine general told investigators that trying to engage the embassy in discussions about an evacuation was “like pulling teeth” until early August. “After that,” he said, “it became more collaborative.”
A spokesman for Sullivan referred questions to McKenzie.
During an Aug. 6 meeting, a National Security Council official, who is not identified in the report, appeared to lack a sense of urgency and told others involved that if the United States had to execute an evacuation, it would signal “we have failed,” Sullivan recalled. “In my opinion, the NSC was not seriously planning for an evacuation,” he said.
The White House declined to comment.
.
.
.
At the embassy, U.S. troops went room to room on Aug. 15, pressing people to meet deadlines and get ready to go, an Army officer from the 10th Mountain Division told investigators. Some State Department personnel were “intoxicated and cowering in rooms,” and others were “operating like it was day-to-day operations with absolutely no sense of urgency or recognition of the situation,” the officer said.
.
.
.
Sullivan, the Marine general, told investigators that there were changing expectations about how many people associated with Afghan paramilitary units aiding the evacuation needed to be taken out of the country. He initially thought it was 6,000 people — including strike unit members and their families — but later learned the correct number was about 38,800, and advised that it would be wise for the military to request commercial airline help through the Civil Reserve Air Fleet to increase overall flights.
Additionally, U.S. troops were overwhelmed with thousands of requests from the White House and Congress, and as far as the Vatican, to locate and rescue specific people in the crowd, including some who would not otherwise have been eligible for the evacuation.
.
.
.
Officials said on Friday that, in addition to the 13 service members who died, another 45 were wounded in the blast, with some suffering brain injuries that surfaced later.
On Aug. 29, an errant U.S. drone strike killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children. Top Pentagon officials initially justified the attack, saying they believed it had targeted another would-be suicide bomber. The victims included an aid worker and several members of his family.
Full story at
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...investigation/
- berryberry
- 02-11-2022, 12:21 PM
This was utter incompetence from Senile Biden and his regime. Should be impeachable !!!
- berryberry
- 02-12-2022, 11:24 PM
Declassified Afghanistan reports back U.S. commanders who said Biden team was indecisive during crisis
Declassified U.S. military analyses of the calamitous exit from Afghanistan detail repeated instances of friction between American troops and diplomats before and during the evacuation, concluding that indecisiveness among Biden administration officials and initial reluctance to shutter the embassy in Kabul sowed chaos and put the overall mission at “increased risk.”
Two “after action” reports were prepared by officials assigned to U.S. Central Command in September, about three weeks after the final planeload of military personnel departed Hamid Karzai International Airport. The assessments appear to affirm separate accounts of senior U.S. commanders frustrated by what they characterized as sloppy, misguided management of the withdrawal.
As The Washington Post first reported Tuesday, military leaders who coordinated the evacuation fault officials in the White House and the State Department whom, they say, failed to respect the Taliban’s swift advance last year and resisted pleas from the military to prepare for an evacuation weeks before Kabul’s fall.
The declassified after-action analyses are contained within an official report detailing the military’s investigation of an Aug. 26 suicide bombing outside the airport’s Abbey Gate that killed an estimated 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members. The report, obtained by The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request, comprises dozens of witness interviews, findings of fact, and other official government records. Spanning 2,000 pages, it presents the most extensive, unvarnished account to date of the United States’ 17-day race to end its longest war.
The existence of the after-action reports contradicts claims made Friday by White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who has joined President Biden and other administration officials in seeking to downplay the significance of U.S. commanders’ remarks.
“I think it’s important for people to understand that there was no after-action report,” Psaki told reporters in the White House briefing room.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...ction-reports/
Declassified U.S. military analyses of the calamitous exit from Afghanistan detail repeated instances of friction between American troops and diplomats before and during the evacuation, concluding that indecisiveness among Biden administration officials and initial reluctance to shutter the embassy in Kabul sowed chaos and put the overall mission at “increased risk.”
Two “after action” reports were prepared by officials assigned to U.S. Central Command in September, about three weeks after the final planeload of military personnel departed Hamid Karzai International Airport. The assessments appear to affirm separate accounts of senior U.S. commanders frustrated by what they characterized as sloppy, misguided management of the withdrawal.
As The Washington Post first reported Tuesday, military leaders who coordinated the evacuation fault officials in the White House and the State Department whom, they say, failed to respect the Taliban’s swift advance last year and resisted pleas from the military to prepare for an evacuation weeks before Kabul’s fall.
The declassified after-action analyses are contained within an official report detailing the military’s investigation of an Aug. 26 suicide bombing outside the airport’s Abbey Gate that killed an estimated 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members. The report, obtained by The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request, comprises dozens of witness interviews, findings of fact, and other official government records. Spanning 2,000 pages, it presents the most extensive, unvarnished account to date of the United States’ 17-day race to end its longest war.
The existence of the after-action reports contradicts claims made Friday by White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who has joined President Biden and other administration officials in seeking to downplay the significance of U.S. commanders’ remarks.
“I think it’s important for people to understand that there was no after-action report,” Psaki told reporters in the White House briefing room.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...ction-reports/
- Salty Again
- 02-13-2022, 11:09 AM
... Military Leaders trying to somehow justify the belated withdrawal.
And save what might be left of their tainted careers.
... "Blame it ALL on Joe!" ...
#### Salty
And save what might be left of their tainted careers.
... "Blame it ALL on Joe!" ...
#### Salty